


Lists

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Lists
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 13:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10106054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: A series of lists.





	1. Things That Make 2017 Scully Happy

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: N/A  
> A/N: From tumblr prompts.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

Political protests, although she usually can’t join in as a federal employee. She has a Nevertheless, She Persisted tank top that she runs in.

Making plans for Mulder to move back in. Looking for a new place that will accommodate her new life. 

That time she created a cure for that plague back in early 2016 and the fact that almost everyone’s still alive now.

William being back in her life in his tentative teenage way, although she’s sad that his adoptive parents died in the plague. He insists on having dinner together every night. It’s very sweet, although so far they mostly run through a list of rote questions. She’s genuinely interested in his answers.

Working for the FBI. 

Sunday morning lattes. 

Her remaining loved ones’ health and strength.

The half-grown puppy she and Will picked out at the shelter. Her name is Yankee. She has repeatedly told Mulder that baseball fanaticism is not genetic. Mulder just looks smug. 

Not being on the run. Not fearing for her life at every turn. Not being in an almost windowless office. Not giving a damn what people think.

Saturday Night Live, which she watches with Will.

Kissing Mulder.

Book Club night with a few women from the hospital and a few of the female agents from the FBI. They read New York Times Bestsellers and sip wine and almost always actually discuss the book. A few of them are part of her running group. They have each other’s backs. It’s the first time in a long time she’s had friends. She has people to call if she has difficulties parenting a teenager, or a question about how other families have negotiated situations like laundry and curfews and chores around the house.

Not being alone.

Sitting on the shore on the log near where she poured her mother’s ashes into the ocean. She’s planted a rose bush where there’s soil enough to sustain it. She listens to the waves roll in and breathes in the scent of salt and roses. 

Waking up slowly with Mulder’s arm around her.

Yankee wrestling with a toy in the unbridled joy that dogs express better than she has ever managed.

Taking long baths with her book club book. She’s aware that “good bathtub” is not necessarily the most important thing in a house, but that’s high on her list of criteria for their new place.

Going over Will’s homework with him. Asking him questions about what he wants to do with his future. Finding out what kind of person he’s become. Discovering his thoughtfulness and insight.

A weekend in the mountains. A weekend in New York. A weekend where none of them leaves the house at all, and they only make time for each other. 

The way that life goes on. The way that she’s weathered every disaster so far. The strength that she’s found in herself. The strength that they’ve found in each other. The hopes she has for the future. The graceful way she handles most of the obstacles she encounters in the present, informed by her past experience.

Speaking truth to power as often as she can. 

Making a better world for her son and all his potential futures.

Coming home.


	2. Things Scully Does When Mulder's Had A Particularly Bad Day

She slips out to the corner convenience store to get real cream for his coffee. He’ll never admit it, but he hates to drink it black. He’s also susceptible to doughnuts, especially crullers, and there’s a bakery that sells black and whites that send him into raptures.

She has a private file full of clips of things she’s saved that might pique his interest. She’s spent a lot of Saturday nights trawling the more conspiracy-minded corners of the internet, finding blurry photos of alleged Bigfoot sightings and compiling a list of UFO accounts she thinks he hasn’t read yet. She’ll casually mention them when he’s in a dark mood. 

She also has a file of poetry. Mulder likes Byron and Mary Oliver and Pablo Neruda. She slowly collects words for him: lovely verses and strange ones.

She tunes the radio to a classic rock station and he croons along in a rough voice, occasionally jamming out via air guitar. 

She curls close to him in bed, tucking his hand over her heart. 

She helps him install a basketball hoop behind their garage on a mysterious flat pad of concrete. She is very bad at basketball, but they play Horse and she jostles against him to make him feel like he has a worthy opponent. 

She listens to him tell ghost stories and shivers at all the right parts.

She joins him in the shower and scrubs the broad span of his back and shoulders. 

She argues with him, planting a flag for reason and rationalism and letting him try to capture it.

She gets him to run with her to the park; there’s always a dog with a ball or a frisbee that needs to be guided back toward its owner. 

She builds a fire and they sit on the couch reading, their feet touching in the middle, or they watch the snow fall from the comfort of the porch, the two of them wrapped in one blanket and sharing a hot toddy.

She strokes his hair.

She buys him a new copy of _Plan Nine From Outer Space_ ; she’s memorized most of it. 

She lets him have his private moments to mourn the lives they’ve lost along the way. But she always knocks on the door after an appropriate interval, always brings him back to the light. She tells him, with words or without, that she won’t leave again, as long as they can keep their promises to each other.

She keeps a bag of sunflower seeds in her car.


	3. Things Mulder Does To Make Scully Happy

He brings her coffee in the mornings, until she starts drinking green tea, and then he brings an electric kettle into the office, and a squeeze bear of honey. (She says she’s off sugar, but he knows she thinks green tea tastes like lawn clippings.)

He holds her coat for her, so that she can slide her arms into it easily, a moment of dignity for her and deference for him. He only does it when he’s sure it won’t make her look like she needs to be catered to. He understands how precarious her position can be, surrounded by men who assume that she’s frail. He purposefully gives her opportunities to showcase her strength and her intelligence. He defers to her wisdom.

He lets her pick the movie. They do not watch _Caddyshack_ or _Steel Magnolias_. 

He puts her towel in the dryer while she’s in the bath, rewarming it in five-minute increments, trying to calculate the end of her soak. 

He genuinely tries to outshoot her at the range. He does not succeed. 

He lets her drive.

He matches his pace to hers when they run together, despite his longer legs. 

He remembers her birthday and celebrates it quietly.

He never orders for her at a restaurant or a bar. He doesn’t comment on the food that she chooses (even the bee pollen in her yogurt) except for the one time, with the non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicle, and that’s only because he wants to taste the sweetness of it on her lips. 

He finds ways to make the rest of the world fade away. all her everyday nagging concerns vanishing in the thrill of the puzzle or the crack of the bat or the crispness of the air as they hike or the satisfaction of making improvements around the house. 

He loves her. He makes sure that she knows that, even when the world is falling apart.


	4. Things They Fight About

Who’s driving. 

Where they should stop.

Whose reports are better.

What to eat for dinner.

Whether there is or is not a vast global conspiracy that appears to fixate on them and their work. 

Whether or not Mulder ditches Scully any time one of his exes shows up. 

Whether or not Queequeg was a good idea. 

Whether or not The Lone Gunmen make any sense.

Whether or not Friday night is a good time to pick up a case, and it doesn’t matter whether or not I already had plans, Mulder, we don’t need to work every single weekend. Maybe I do have a date. Maybe I just wanted a few hours to myself.


	5. Things Scully Does Without Mulder

Scully plants a garden at the unremarkable house. She’s never really lived anywhere she could have a garden before, and she likes the thought of herself putting down roots at the same time that the plants do. There’s although the thought in the back of her mind that if the world ends, being able to grow her own food will be important. She learns to identify the tender little seedlings as they put forth their cotyledons. She pulls up the weeds. (Later, in her lonely apartment, she buys a ficus and a few other plants. She’s pleased that she’s learned how to keep them alive. They remind her of better days, and they tether her. She cares for them. None of them yield any fruit and that’s on purpose. She wants to put some things behind her, and the first of them is the idea that disaster lurks around every corner.)

She cleans the house. The nurses have introduced her to Spotify. It’s always making her playlists full of Fleetwood Mac and Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. She hums to herself as she makes the space her own, everything shipshape, gleaming and tidy. 

She reads. She reads everything, medical journals and the Washington Post and the newest bestseller jumbled in the basket where she keeps her current reads. She keeps intending to subscribe to Bitch Magazine - she picked up an issue at the bookstore one day when she was feeling particularly in need of taking a stand on something and the articles fascinated her. There are worlds she’s never imagined (and oh, she’s imagined so many). 

She runs. It clears her head. She likes the burn in her legs and her chest. Some days it’s a physical manifestation of the hurts that she feels in less tangible places. Some days it’s proof that she’s alive and thriving, years after staring at the death’s-head barely concealed by the tight dry skin of her own faces. Some days she’s outrunning doomsday. Some days it’s just the glory of it, sweat and mud and the electric pressure of her feet hitting the ground and springing up again. She takes up yoga too, when she moves back into town: it’s comforting to feel her body strengthening itself in new ways, becoming more flexible. She’s felt rigid for so long, always on guard, treading the same path. Yoga offers new perspectives, new possibilities. She has space to breathe. 

She has one of those adult coloring books, another bookstore purchase on an odd day. She sits on the porch, or later, the balcony of her apartment, and lets herself do something that seems so frivolous. Thirty minutes to herself, even when she lives alone, seems like such an indulgence. 

She learns how to steep tea properly. She learns how to make her own scones. She chops salads and sautés chicken and folds dumplings and seals summer rolls. She makes a pot of fragrant pho. She doesn’t worry about leftovers spoiling in the fridge before she can eat them, because she doesn’t leave town often.

She takes baths and develops strong preferences about Lush bath bombs. She likes the blue one with the seaweed. She rarely likes the orange ones. She likes the bubble bars too, and the subtle glitter of the water. 

She takes care of herself and her space. She lets herself belong.


	6. Things Mulder Does For Scully on International Women's Day

He brings her breakfast in bed: a perfectly toasted English muffin with the nice imported butter and the good coffee, made in the French press instead of the regular machine. There are cut-up strawberries too. Folded neatly under the plate is the New York Times crossword, untouched, with a mechanical pencil and a pen, so that she has options. She takes her time with it, letting him rest his chin on her shoulder. He doesn’t offer help with any of the clues.

He lets her drive them to work. She weaves neatly in and out of traffic as they listen to NPR. He doesn’t even say a word about the way she adjusts the mirrors. They’ve delineated their own neutral territories over the years. 

He takes her out to lunch, away from the files and the corpses, to the place she likes that does great soups and salads. They linger, smiling at each other over cups of tea. 

He listens to every single thing she says, which he usually does, but he does it with a special air of attentiveness, especially in the presence of other people. Especially in the presence of other men. She appreciates that. 

They go to the gym together. Mulder looks very fetching in his “Nevertheless, she persisted” shirt. Scully wears red. They run side by side on the treadmills and make their way through the circuit of machines. He drives home through the rush hour traffic. She holds his hand and looks out the window as they listen to Fresh Air. 

They cook dinner together. She sears the pork chops as he throws together a salad. They eat at the table, not on the couch, and discuss their days, the hours that they were apart, the things they thought that they weren’t able to share at the time.

He draws her a bath, hot and deep and frothy with bubbles. She sinks into the lavender-scented water. When she emerges, he wraps her in warm towels and rubs her feet . She sighs in a happy haze. When she’s limp with pleasure, he hands her his Knicks t-shirt to sleep in, fresh and clean, and they curl up together in the bed. She runs her hands over him and he presses himself against her. They move together in a rhythm that suits them both. 

She falls asleep in his arms.


	7. Things That Never Happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuity errors and wobbles, theories, wishful thinking.

Fire:  
Mulder told her once that he was afraid of fire. She isn’t sure if L’Ively’s accelerated flames broke him or cured him. He seems startled when the book catches fire in their hands in the cemetery, but not terrified. The flame in the oil field doesn’t leave him shivering, despite the stress of his Russian adventure. They sit in their unremarkable house in front of the fire, and his chest rises and falls steadily under her cheek. 

Insects:  
He told her that he hated insects. She sees none of if while they’re gardening. Mulder picks slugs and caterpillars off their plants with ease, tossing them into the bucket he uses to collect fish bait. They even have a few baby mantises one summer, lurking under the tomatoes, and Mulder doesn’t flinch. Maybe he doesn’t see them. Maybe one praying mantis epiphany is enough for a lifetime.

Color:  
The Gunmen told her he couldn’t see color. They told her that’s why he was immune to the subliminal messaging that invaded her brain, flickering in through the cones of her eyes. But she remembers him talking about the green liquid the doctors took from the subjects in the train cars. She remembers the flick of his gaze over her red suit. When he buys flowers, they never clash with the red of her hair. She recalls, dimly, that color-blindness may be a barrier to passing the FBI physical. But if anyone could talk his way through that, it would be Mulder. 

Birthdays:  
She wanted once to celebrate his sister’s birthday with some small gesture, but there were two different dates in the files. Samantha Mulder is, to Scully, little more than a collection of tightly-wrapped mysteries, the least of which is her date of birth.

Coins:  
In the drawer of her desk, there are two coins fused together. She spins them with her fingertips and thinks she should remember. But she isn’t certain what it is she ought to know. Another X-File, unexplained, inexplicable. She keeps the coins.

Rain:  
They kissed in Oregon, in the pouring rain, by the grave of the young taken untimely. (They never kissed until the turn of the century, the ball dropping, the date flipping, but she remembers it anyway.)


	8. Things They Do (Not In Bed) To Make Up For Lost Time

Crossword puzzles.

Arguing over old half-solved cases that they never prosecuted.

Mulder reads articles on cryptids. Scully disputes the journalistic and scientific credibility of his sources.

Ice cream.

C-SPAN hearings.

Paperwork. Paperwork. Paperwork. That’s all they know to do to save the department.

Outside the office, picking out new sheets and a better coffeemaker.

Slowly combining their book, movie, and music collections.

Talking about whether or not to replace the couch. Mulder’s okay with it. Scully won’t have it.

Runs, trying to pace each other.

Scully makes Mulder clean and oil his weapon and renew his certifications.


	9. Things Scully Hates About Mulder

She hates that there are still moments when he doesn’t believe he can depend on anybody. She hates that anybody hurt him, ever. She hates that smug cavalier tone he takes sometimes. She hates missing him. She hates the emptiness on his side of the bed. She hates turning to talk to him and seeing Doggett instead. She doesn’t hate Doggett. She hates the way conspiracy and shadows keep them away from each other. She hates, sometimes, how much she wants and needs him.


	10. Times Scully Tells Mulder She Loves Him

She says it at least three times a week when they’re together, but quietly. She doesn’t make a production out of it. Mulder will cite some arcane tidbit of cryptid trivia and she’ll laugh and tell him she loves him, shaking her head. Or he’ll wash and fold the laundry on a day when she’s pulled the longest shift in the world, and she’ll lean against him and tell him she loves him. Or she’ll wake in the middle of the night, just knowing those enchanted-forest eyes are staring into the dark without seeing the stars, and she’ll rest her head on his chest and tell him she loves him.


	11. Mulder and Scully's Nighttime Routines

Separately, they brush their teeth, hang up their suits, change from home clothes into night clothes (matching pajama sets for Scully, boxers and maybe a t-shirt for Mulder, or pajama pants in the winter), settle themselves under the covers, and then pick up their phones. They touch the 1 button (Scully feels vaguely guilty that Mulder is programmed in before any of her family) too lightly to dial. The button is worn smooth. Sometimes, they press it. They put the phones to their ears. The plastic warms quickly. The voice on the other end is a lullaby, is a breeze that rattles the leaves, is a wave rolling to shore. 

When they’re together, they brush their teeth together, undress together, dig together into the jumbled drawers (Mulder) and the tidy stacks (Scully) of their bedroom, climb into bed together, push their feet against each other under the covers. Sometimes Mulder reads to Scully. Sometimes Scully reads to Mulder. They fall asleep together, insomnia almost a memory.


End file.
